Introduction. In a single full-time judo struggle played by a male player lasts 5 minutes of active work, with excluding total time of rest periods, when a referee aborts a struggle. Thus work-to-rest is the factor showing both judging and fighting style. The aim of this study was to confirm hypothesis, that severe muscle fatigue may shifts work-to-rest ratio toward a lower values.
Material and methods. Six senior male judo players were grouped into three pairs, which played repeated three full-time 5-minute judo sparing matches separated by 10-minute passive intermissions. The struggles were judged by the same referee. Total time of each struggle lasted 5 minutes of active combat with stoppage time of rest periods. Additional comparable observation was conducted during official judo tournaments, where each of six judokas played at least one full-time fight.
Results. For 1 st and 2 nd struggle work-to-rest period were comparable, 2.27± 0.42, n=6, while for 3 rd struggle was lower 1.60±0.07. We suspect that lower work-to-rest ratio and higher sum of rest times resulted in higher frequency of these situations during 3 rd game, which forced a referee to abort combat. During an official full-time struggle the mean total time was somewhat shorter, thus, work-to-rest ratio was somewhat higher 2.78 as compared to those values of sparing fights
Conclusions. Successive repeated intensive judo sparing bouts with short rest intervals between them change work-to-rest ratio toward lower values.